A Short History of Bed-sharing
by EllisHendricks
Summary: There are many ways in which two people can share a bed, and many ways they can behave when they're there - something Sherlock learns as he and Molly find themselves doing it increasingly often. Starts shortly after series 2, and should bring us right up to date (and possibly beyond...).
1. Chapter 1

The first time didn't count.

In the first few weeks after Operation Lazarus, it had been necessary for him to hole up in Molly's flat – after all, he couldn't very well stay with Mycroft or his parents, all of whom were bound to come under immediate and intense scrutiny by Moriarty's network, as well as Britain's not-inconsiderable gutter press. He needed a place to hide, a place to think, and Sherlock knew that Molly would comply – or at least not put up too much resistance. Without a moment's warning, she had skillfully and unquestioningly helped him to fake his death, so letting him lie low in her home seemed like a trivial added extra.

And on the first few occasions, Molly had behaved completely as he'd expected. When she wasn't offering him food or returning his laundry, neatly folded, she did her best to melt into the background. Chatted a bit, but mostly anxious to keep out of his way, to allow him to do what he needed to do. When he'd made the case for needing her bed rather than the ludicrous toddler bed in the spare room, she had baulked for a second, but then – as he'd predicted – she acquiesced. He remembered feeling a strange momentary pang of disappointment – had he wanted her to stand up to him? Holding the power in a relationship was usually advantageous and to be fought for, but Sherlock was aware that with Molly, there was something slightly uncomfortable – almost shaming - about this imbalance.

So he should have felt better when Molly finally stood her ground.

She'd come home earlier than usual, upset about something (he hadn't bothered to find out what), then seemed to deliberately ignore him while she fed the cat, made and ate a sandwich, and got ready for bed. He'd received a perfunctory 'goodnight' before she left him in the living room.

A short while later, he was slightly surprised to find her in her own bed, although he could tell from her posture – tense, taut – and her breathing, that she wasn't asleep.

"I thought we had an agreement," he began.

He noticed her shoulders shift and heard an exhale of breath that clearly denoted irritation.

" _You_ had an agreement," she replied, without turning over to face him. "But today I need my own bed, Sherlock. There's a guest room – you're the guest."

He chose not to analyse too closely her choice of terminology.

"Can't sleep there, you know that," he reminded her. "The bed's too short, the room's too small."

"Help yourself to the sofa, then," she retorted, in a tone that Sherlock wasn't sure he'd heard from her before.

But if there was one thing he found hard to tolerate (or at least one thing near the top of the list), it was a change to the expected routine. Of course, Molly probably knew that, knew that it would irritate him. Something had changed – he didn't really care what, as long as it didn't stand in the way of him getting what he needed.

"Molly, I have spent the best part of nine hours working through a complex set of data in eight different languages, the understanding of which is going to be critical to the dismantling of Moriarty's vast and far-reaching network. It's absolutely vital that I now have the optimal conditions available to me to facilitate complete rest and to enable me to re-organise my Mind Palace."

Without waiting for her to reply, he pulled back the duvet and climbed into the bed beside her. Molly's response, he had assumed, would be to huff a bit and then vacate the bed, but she didn't budge. Instead, she pulled the duvet more tightly around her, causing an unwelcome draught down his left side.

"Molly, as a woman of science, not to mention a reliably rational-"

"Not today, Sherlock," she said, cutting him off, a warning note in her tone that he had no intention of heeding.

"I refer back to our agreement-"

"For God's sake, Sherlock, I just attended your funeral!"

She quickly twisted around in the bed, and fixed him with a challenging stare. Now, with her face so close to his, he could see for the first time that she had been crying. Why had she been crying? He wasn't _actually_ dead.

He had a feeling she might have mentioned the funeral at some point, but it hadn't seemed an important enough detail to retain. It was just another stage in the process of maintaining believable cover. That said, probably should have noticed that she had been dressed entirely in black when she came in.

"Why does that make a difference to where you sleep?" he demanded, ignoring the slightly petulant tone that seemed to have crept into his own voice.

Molly was a good foot away from him in the bed, but he could feel her (in his view, irrational) anger radiating from her slight form.

She took a deep breath, blinked, apparently searching his face for something and finding it wanting.

"I just spent an afternoon lying to a roomful of grief-stricken people, Sherlock," she said, more quietly and more composed than he was expecting. "Standing through a church service that held no real purpose, offering needless condolences to members of your family, lying, Sherlock, _lying_ to my friends, to your friends. And then there was the wake, where I had to listen politely to stories about you, where I couldn't eat or drink anything because it made me feel sick when I looked at those people and thought about the deception of it all."

There was a silence, and during it Sherlock could see Molly's chest rise and fall at a more rapid pace.

"You're mistaken about one thing, Molly," he told her. "I don't have _friends_."

Molly sprung up in the bed then and, to avoid having her looming over him, Sherlock was forced to do the same.

"You don't have friends?" she repeated, her eyebrows raised in what seemed to be disbelief. "Do you want me to tell that to John Watson? To Mrs Hudson? To Greg Lestrade? You didn't have to see their faces, Sherlock. John was barely functioning; Mrs Hudson was in pieces. Donovan was there, too, and Anderson – all for _you_ , Sherlock."

"Donovan and Anderson would happily dance on my grave," he snorted. "They both think I'm a fraud."

Molly's jaw tightened.

"Even if that were true," she replied. "Even if they really believe the lies, nobody there wanted you to be dead."

It hadn't escaped Sherlock's notice that Molly hadn't included herself in this charming guilt-trip exercise. But it seemed implausible that she would still think she didn't count.

"I'm sorry that you regret your decision to help me," he told her, almost spitting the words. It had seemed faintly ridiculous to be having this conversation in their pyjamas, in her bed.

"Don't…" Molly began, shaking her head. "You know that I would do anything, that I would help you in a heartbeat – and I don't regret for a second what we did. I even accept that I had to attend your funeral, that I will have to lie – and keep on lying – to people I care about, but I just thought that the least you could do would be to be…sensitive to that, to try to understand how that makes me feel. To not be a complete arsehole about it and to please, just _please_ , accept that I need to sleep in my own bed tonight."

Sherlock was slightly taken aback by the force of her argument, and he later wondered whether this had been a turning point of some sort. He _did_ feel cowed, he _did_ feel beholden to her – but he couldn't yet allow Molly Hooper to know the effect she could have on him.

"I need to sleep here, too," he told her firmly.

She closed her eyes for a second, then shook her head again.

"Fine, Sherlock. Whatever. I…I honestly don't care," she said with a sigh.

And with that, she turned away from him again and wrapped herself in the duvet. She wasn't going anywhere. Sherlock stayed where he was for a long moment, his eyes on her, working through all of the 'issues' that had surfaced during the course of the conversation (it wouldn't serve any good purpose to refer to those issues as feelings).

Then he slowly lowered himself down onto the bed again, gently tugging the duvet up to his armpits and turning just slightly so that he was angled towards Molly. There was a sensible, acceptable distance between the two of them; she couldn't claim that he was invading her personal space, and there was no chance she could get the idea that this was anything more than a pragmatic compromise. Although her body-language and the tone of their recent discourse made that seem fairly unlikely anyway.

He tried to will his body to relax, which would in turn allow him to retreat into his Mind Palace. But his body refused to co-operate.

"Shut up!" he muttered without thinking.

He was slightly horrified to realise he'd said that aloud, and to hear Molly mutter a mumbled query in response.

Sherlock didn't reply, just continued to curse his traitorous body in silence. He was not about to explain to Molly Hooper that this was the first time he had shared a bed with a woman.

Or that perhaps it did count after all.


	2. Chapter 2

"Aren't you going into work?" Sherlock asked from his position at the kitchen counter. During daylight hours, he was confined to the back of the flat, out of view from passers-by, nosy neighbours and long-lens cameras (or sniper rifles). Not that it really mattered – he wasn't there to gaze out of the window and admire the view.

Molly was still in her dressing gown, and seemed to be preparing breakfast at a fairly leisurely pace. Everything was more or less back to normal between them, it seemed. After their shared night in Molly's room a week ago, he had risen early and made sure he was showered and fully dressed before she woke. The morning had apparently brought forgiveness, and she never mentioned their conversation again.

"It's Sunday, Sherlock," she replied, as though that was sufficient explanation.

"Don't people die on Sundays?" he countered.

"Yeah, but, handily, being dead, they can wait till Monday," she replied, her nose crinkling when she smiled.

He watched her from over the screen of his laptop, pulling her long hair into a messy ponytail and securing it with some sort of elastic thing.

"Have you had breakfast?" she asked over her shoulder, as she peered into the fridge.

Surely anyone who was going to have breakfast would have had it by this time, Sherlock thought. Although apparently, weekends were supposedly different from any other day of the week.

"Nope. Working," he replied. "Slows me down."

He heard Molly snort.

"Um, you know that theory isn't supported by science, right?" she said.

"Hm," Sherlock grunted. "Works for me."

He heard the sound of packets and crockery being arranged on the counter behind him.

"Well, I know what works for me on a Sunday morning," Molly replied. "Bacon sandwiches. White bread, proper butter, Heinz ketchup. I switched to wholemeal once, but it wasn't right."

One thing Sherlock had noticed in his short tenure _chez Molly_ was her tendency to offer seemingly unnecessary detail to conversations – and he wondered whether, if he wasn't there, she would be having the same conversations with herself (or, more charitably, with the cat). The slightly unnerving thing was, though, that he was starting to get used to it – and, worse than that, miss it when she was out of the flat.

"Brown sauce," he said.

"What?"

"Everybody knows that bacon sandwiches should be accompanied by brown sauce," he elaborated in a flat tone, which he hoped would convey his disinterest. "Not ketchup."

She snorted again.

"For a genius, Sherlock, you can be wrong about the simplest things."

That comment registered two things with him: one, she was hugely mistaken about her choice of condiment, and two, Molly Hooper thought he was a genius. Why did that suddenly seem to matter to him?

"It's your breakfast," he shrugged.

"Yes - it is," she replied, dropping two pieces of bread into the toaster. "My kitchen, my rules."

It was his turn to snort at that. She'd been fairly malleable up until this point when it came to house rules, although some of them seemed completely irrational and arbitrary– including the fact that _he_ had to keep his shoes off the coffee table, but it was perfectly fine and sanitary for the cat to sit on the kitchen counter.

Sherlock returned to the screen in front of him, silence descending on the kitchen aside from the occasional soft hum from Molly as she made her breakfast. And the not-so-soft growl of his stomach in response to the aroma of cooking bacon. Molly must have heard it too, as she purposefully wafted the plate under his nose as she strolled past him, barefoot, to the living room.

00000000

For most of the day, she moved around him, cleaning and tidying, bringing groceries home from the shops, and other things that normal people apparently did at the weekend, as though the weekend was somehow different from any other day. At one point he heard her on the phone, talking to a friend (Mara? Maria? Meena?), and he gathered that Molly was being asked whether she was okay, whether she was managing. Apparently, there were people who thought that Molly would be devastated by his death. Ordinarily, Sherlock couldn't care less about whether he was the topic of other people's conversations, but he found himself wondering just how often – and in what context – Molly and her friend had previously discussed him. With a measure of shame, he imagined it probably wasn't good.

Still, he had to hand it to her – she was good at maintaining a cover or, as she would put it, lying. Sherlock almost started to wonder whether she'd done something like this before.

The tone of the day shifted as he dug himself deeper into his work, and he suspected that Molly sensed it, too. The chatting tailed off, and she started to maintain a careful distance as she went about whatever it was that she did on Sundays.

But, apparently, she didn't need to be talking to him or constantly beside him to gauge what he needed. At one point – having been out and come back again - she placed a take-away coffee cup in front of him.

"Black. Three sugars," was all she said, before taking her own coffee with her to the living room.

He found himself wanting her to stay with him, to keep talking, just so he'd have an excuse to say something back to her. Initiating conversation wasn't really his thing – and normally the concept of a pointless conversation was anathema to him - but today it was different. Because as the day wore on, the communications came through and the leads piled up, he was starting to realise that it could be his last chance.

A text from Mycroft early in the evening seemed to confirm this. It came through not long after Molly had nudged a bowl of steaming pasta under his nose.

 _Tomorrow, 0400. Tbilisi. Expect the car 0245._

He had always known it was coming, but thought perhaps that he had a few more days. But that was the problem when your future was out of your hands.

He ate mechanically, aware of the murmur of the television and aware, too, that Molly wasn't really watching. She was watching him, although trying to pretend that she wasn't. She had seen him read the text, and apparently he wasn't as good at concealing his reactions as he'd thought.

She set her empty bowl down on the coffee table beside her glass.

"When do you go?" she asked.

"Early morning," he replied. "Well, middle of the night, really. You can throw away anything I leave behind."

He wasn't sure why he said that.

She looked up at him, questioningly. Up until this point, the longest he'd been away from her flat was a couple of weeks, but there now didn't seem to be any point in him keeping any belongings there – probably safer for all if he didn't.

Molly nodded, avoiding eye contact as she excused herself and stood up to leave the room.

"You can have your bedroom back," he'd told her, before he'd really had a chance to think it through. "I won't be sleeping tonight."

He wondered later what she'd then thought when, shortly before midnight, he climbed into bed beside her. If it took her by surprise, she didn't show it. In fact, Sherlock was fairly certain that he was the one with the more elevated pulse, the one who didn't understand what was going on.

He had made up his mind to leave early. It made sense to follow up a couple of local leads under cover of darkness, and to tell Mycroft to arrange a different pick-up point instead (again, safer if strange, unmarked cars weren't parked up outside Molly's flat). He'd only intended to look in on Molly one more time before he left, but apparently his rational mind wasn't in the driving seat.

Because he was Sherlock Holmes, because he was an emotionally-stunted bastard, he hadn't truly told this woman how indebted he was to her, that he owed her his life. She knew she counted, yes, but that seemed like an insult now. It didn't begin to describe what she really was.

Shrugging off his jacket and toe-ing off his shoes, he eased himself under the covers and gently inched towards Molly's body. She was lying on her right side again, her long hair leaving the back of her neck and her shoulder-blades exposed. He didn't remember her seeming so small in the bed, las time. Sherlock felt the warmth from her body increase as he moved closer, and he was aware that his usual ability to control his heartrate was failing him. But then, he'd never prepared himself for this scenario.

Eventually, in the darkness, he felt his chest make contact with Molly's back, and this achingly scant touch caused her to stir. He stilled himself, realising that he hadn't anticipated a situation where she would wake up and he might have to explain himself. But she didn't fully wake, didn't turn around, didn't question him – instead, Sherlock felt her shift backwards towards him, fitting their bodies together more closely. He heard his own intake of breath and tried to let it out gently, concentrating on his breathing as a way to steady his heartrate. This was no easy task, given that he now had his nose in Molly Hooper's hair and a hand that he had no idea what to do with. Eventually, tentatively, he reached his arm across her, settling it loosely over her middle, his hand resting on the bed in front of her. Really, he was barely touching her. A moment or two later, Molly's hand came up and small, slender fingers laced with his, anchoring them.

Very soon, his breathing fell into step with Molly's, their chests rising and falling together.

He watched the digital display on her bedside clock, carefully and assiduously committing every new sensation to memory, and when the time came to slide his hand out from underneath hers, Sherlock felt as though something deep within him was howling in protest.

An unfamiliar pain in his chest was still there as he climbed into the waiting car, still there as he smoked a last cigarette on the airfield, and would revisit him late at night in dosshouses and abandoned warehouses for many months to come. He knew he had access to those memories, could revisit them any time he wanted – but he didn't dare, because if he allowed himself to drift back to Molly Hooper's bed, even for a moment, there was a possibility that the work would be forgotten, and Moriarty – even in his grave - would win.


	3. Chapter 3

He'd suffered a brief lapse at some point during John's stag do. Not that he was to blame for that, given that he was 99% sure that John had tampered with his meticulous calculations for alcohol intake. Alcohol made people into idiots – that was established fact - but Sherlock hadn't fully realised the degree to which alcohol could apparently turn people into idiots with _urges_. He started to have thoughts, the nature of which he was usually able to keep in check, and his body suddenly wanted to do… _things_. What was most troubling, his drink-addled mind was telling him he wanted to do those things with Molly. Who was engaged to someone else.

Probably a good thing then that he'd thrown up in a stranger's flat and wound up in a police cell.

The next time he had allowed himself to think about it, he was high. Or at least coming down. Moriarty was alive – or so it seemed – and he was in the car, being driven from the airfield with John and Mary, and still coming to terms with the vivid, narcotics-fuelled, Victorian-era dream-slash-hallucination he'd just experienced. As it turned out, he wasn't going to die in some Eastern European hellhole, and apparently he wasn't going to die from this latest lapse in sobriety either.

Perhaps epiphanies really were a thing - and, although it frightened him to consider it, perhaps there was a reason that his unconscious mind had conjured up Molly Hooper in that way. A mantra had been playing in his head on the drive back into London - _a war we must lose, a war we must lose_ – and he realised, to his horror, that he was thinking about Molly in a particular…way. Again.

And when he'd next seen Molly, in the lab – having fully believed that he may never see her again – he had struggled to make eye contact. Which was ridiculous. He had no reason to feel self-conscious; it had been the last, surreal throes of his dying brain – not like he'd had an erotic dream about her. Nope, that would come later (no prurient pun intended).

It was the day of Rosie's christening and he was now officially a godfather, whatever that meant. So far, it mostly seemed to entail repeating meaningless drivel to a vicar, and having his photo taken – repeatedly.

Photos with Rosie.

Photos with John, Mary and Rosie.

Photos with Molly, Mrs Hudson and Rosie.

Photos with all of the above plus vicar and assorted other people who had apparently trekked out to a church in the middle of the countryside to watch an infant being doused with magical water.

Now, sitting on the sofa in John and Mary's living room, Sherlock was aware that things were going on around him. Embroiled in seven different 'conversations' on his phone, covering four different cases, he had tried his best to ignore it – but Mary pulling at a lock of hair above his ear made that rather difficult.

"Oi!" she said. "Shift!"

Sherlock looked up – and then around him. The living room, previously teeming with hordes of tedious, beige christening guests, was suddenly empty.

"Where did everyone go?" he asked, rubbing his scalp.

Mary laughed.

"Home, probably," she replied. "It's after ten-thirty. Now shift!"

He must still have looked puzzled, as John gestured towards the sofa.

"We need to get this made up, mate," he explained. "Molly's staying over."

"If it's really no trouble," he heard Molly's voice pipe up.

Sherlock acknowledged then, that it was indeed dark outside. He must have lost at least three hours – but then he couldn't imagine having missed anything very important. He'd partaken in the post-christening buffet, so unless you counted holding a baby, being drooled on by a baby, talking about babies or drinking sub-par sparkling wine as being important, Sherlock was confident he'd done the right thing.

"Don't you have a guesr room?" he asked, puzzled.

"You're sitting on it," John replied.

"We're a doctor and a nurse living in central London," Mary chimed in. "And until you set John up with a monthly salary and pension scheme for the time he spends keeping your arse out of trouble, we can't afford the luxury of a proper guest room."

 _Molly has a guest room_ , Sherlock thought. Probably best not to mention that, though; John looked three seconds away from angry mode.

Sherlock rose from the sofa and removed himself to a safe distance before resuming his text consultations.

"Bit of help, Sherlock?" John asked with a sigh, as he pulled the cushions off the sofa.

With a roll of his eyes, Sherlock pocketed his phone and started to help John with the ludicrously complicated process of converting a sofa into a bed.

"I can just sleep on it as it is, if you like," Molly offered. "I've kipped on plenty of ordinary sofas in the past."

"No, don't be silly, Molls," Mary replied. "It will be good for someone to get some use out of it. Plus, Sherlock's been sitting on those cushions for the best part of half a day – you never know what you might catch."

Sherlock saw Mary wink at Molly. Mary apparently found it endlessly amusing to make him the butt of her infantile jokes. Even the topic of Rosamund's wind was more humorous than that.

"I've slept in much worse places," Molly said brightly. "Bathtubs a couple of times, out on someone's balcony once, the floor of a National Express depot, on a bench in a cemetery…"

Ah, she was tipsy, hence the babbling. When he looked more closely, he saw that she had the pink cheeks to match. But he'd spent most of the day trying _not_ to look more closely - which had been problematic, what with the scoop-neck flower garment and the hair-up-in-a-scarf thingy. Not to mention the three different half-witted christening guests who had assumed Molly was his wife.

"Well, the Lightweight Twins here slept in a police cell," Mary grinned. "So they've got you beat, Molls. I'll get you something to sleep in."

Sherlock snorted quietly to himself. That police cell was palatial luxury compared to some of the overnight accommodation he'd experienced during his exile.

A couple of minutes later, Mary returned with her arms full of bedding, depositing them on the floor beside the bare sofa-bed that John was still trying to wrestle into submission. She picked a pair of grey, star-covered pyjamas off the top of the pile and handed them to Molly. Sherlock was vaguely aware of the various exchanges of 'goodnight' going on around him, before John's voice cut through the white noise.

"Sherlock? Cab?"

"Hm?"

"I said do you want me to call a minicab?" John continued. "Out here in 'the soulless vacuum of the suburbs' as you call it, black cabs don't tend to just magically appear."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"No, thank you, John," he replied. "I'm perfectly capable of locating the number of a cab company."

"Suit yourself," John shrugged. "Don't keep Molly up too late."

Moments later, he and Molly were alone. Sherlock perched on the edge of one of the armchairs, scrolling through the latest communications – his battery was low, but he'd take advantage of the Watsons' wi-fi before he left. A quick glance informed him that Molly was pottering around, taking things out and putting things in her bag. She reached up and started to remove the pins and unwind the scarf from her hair, and Sherlock found that he couldn't look away. There was something private about it that almost made him feel like a voyeur. But as Molly shrugged out of her cardigan, he realised that she must at least feel comfortable around him these days – although maybe _too_ comfortable wasn't good? If she was _too_ comfortable, what did that say about their friendship?

"Um, Sherlock," Molly began. "Sorry, I meant to ask Mary if she could unzip me before she went. Could you – I mean, if you could just get it started, I can reach the rest of the way."

If she had caught him staring, she wasn't going to mention it. Still, she was blushing a little.

Sherlock coughed slightly, leaving his phone on the chair as he got to his feet. His hands suddenly felt a degree or two warmer.

Keeping her at arm's length, he waited while Molly lifted her hair from the back of her neck (really, she should have done the dress _before_ the hair) before finding the zip. Suddenly, the assessment of how far he should unzip seemed incredibly important; too far and he would almost certainly encounter the fastenings of an undergarment, not far enough and she wouldn't be able to reach, rendering his help completely unhelpful. He settled on a safe four-and-a-half inches, and stepped back, immediately going back to recover his phone.

"Thank you," Molly said quietly, turning around. "I'm just going to…um, just going to get changed."

The few minutes alone in the living room enabled him to rally and refocus on the case; Lestrade had sent him a toxicology report and a nice set of crime scene photos.

When Molly returned, she was dressed in the slightly-too-long pyjamas and carrying her toothbrush (did she always carry a toothbrush around with her?). She started to assemble the bedding, and while Sherlock's instinct was to offer his assistance (she seemed to be disappearing inside the duvet cover, for one thing) he wasn't sure how either of them would feel about making a bed together. Seemed too domestic, too…something.

"Are you working on anything interesting?" Molly asked over her shoulder.

Sherlock watched her as she arranged the pillows side by side (force of habit, he supposed).

"Gangland thing," he replied. "Friendly neighbourhood crime-lord supposedly died in his sleep, but the tox screen has shown up heroic levels of dimethylmercury. Need to find out how it was administered before beginning the task of narrowing down whom of this charming character's myriad enemies might have had the opportunity."

"Tell Lestrade to check the man's heels for puncture marks, if he hasn't already," Molly replied. "Always the best place to inject someone – difficult to spot, plenty of hard skin, hardly ever leaves an entry wound or tissue inflammation."

Sherlock considered this information. He would have arrived at it himself eventually, but he had to give Molly credit.

"Not going to be easy, though," she continued. "Dimethylmercury can take weeks, even months to take effect. You'll be looking back over a long time-period – loads of people could have had the opportunity to administer it."

She was right, of course. He should probably speak to Lestrade right away, and see if he could meet him at the morgue. But…

"So!" Molly said. "We're godparents now."

When he looked up, she was already under the covers, settling herself down at the side of the bed furthest away from him. Sherlock frowned to himself; he assumed that this statement required a response.

"So it would seem."

"You feel any different?" she asked, smiling.

He narrowed his eyes – it sounded slightly like a trick question.

"How exactly might you expect me to feel, Molly?"

"I dunno," she shrugged. "Happy. Proud. Scared shitless by the responsibility?"

Sherlock felt his mouth quirk into a faint smile.

"As best as I can gather, Molly, my role as godfather is purely a symbolic gesture. John wishes to reinforce his assertion that I am his best friend and worthy of his trust, and Mary wants to bestow on me something that she believes will give me an understanding of adult responsibility, and that will also reassure me that I am not being usurped by their offspring. I highly doubt that either of them actually wishes me to provide Rosamund with moral, spiritual or even practical guidance. Unless they intend to use my entire life as a cautionary tale."

Molly's face broke into a warm smile, as she propped herself up on her elbows.

"But just think how lucky Rosie is," she said. "Not everyone can say that they have the world's only consulting detective for a godfather."

Sherlock couldn't now help but smile, too. Molly certainly saw things from a different angle; most people would not see a close association with him as a covetable thing.

"And a godmother who cuts up dead people for a living," he put in. "Infinitely more useful than my own godmother, a naturist who wrote cat poems and could never accept that it was no longer 1967."

Molly giggled, stretching slightly.

"She sounds like fun."

"Not when you're fourteen."

"Not much is fun when you're fourteen," Molly said, eyebrows raised.

They were both laughing softly, and when Sherlock looked up at her, he suddenly realised the true meaning of the phrase 'come-to-bed-eyes' – even if Molly wasn't aware of what she was doing.

"I'll, ah, I'll let you get some sleep," he said, swallowing hard. He stood up, swiping the unlock button on his phone.

"You know, you could, um, stay too, if you wanted to," Molly said.

Sherlock didn't dare look at her for fear of what she might see.

"I don't mind," she added. "There's plenty of space. We could even top and tail if you like."

Oh god. Why, coming from Molly, did the perfectly innocent rationalisation of bed-space now sound like some sort of exotic sex position?

"The chair works for me," he blurted. "I'm going to call Lestrade."

"Oh," Molly replied, definitely looking at him with slight concern. "Okay. 'Night, Sherlock."

"Goodnight, Molly," he managed to reply – in a reasonably even tone, he thought - before heading at pace for the sanctuary of the Watsons' backyard.

00000000

Sherlock woke up, but opened his eyes only a fraction.

He was used to assessing strange surroundings within a matter of seconds; it was an essential survival tool, especially when one has been drugged or coshed or otherwise incapacitated, and is just regaining consciousness. Although, apparently, this time it was just plain old, tedious sleep.

The degree of darkness suggested, for the time of year, that it was close to 6am. He was surrounded by a plethora of unfamiliar scents – mild washing powder, several food aromas, possibly stale milk – but also some he recognized. Fruit-scented body-wash, a light floral perfume, skin cleanser.

He was, it seemed, face down on a bed that was not his. And in the dim half-light, he realised he was not alone.

The rest of his assessment happened rapidly, but didn't help him to make any sense of his situation. He was lying beside a sleeping Molly Hooper who, although facing him, was mercifully still asleep. Mercifully for a couple of reasons: one, because his arm had somehow, at some stage, breached the small distance between them during the night and his hand had taken up residence on Molly's hip; and two – Sherlock realised with mortification that although _he_ was still half asleep, certain parts of his anatomy were _very_ much awake and apparently ready for action.

At least he could do something about the hand.

Carefully, he lifted his arm away, pulling it back towards himself like one would reign in a wayward child. Not so easy to resolve the uncomfortably-tight trouser situation. He didn't want to think too closely about what it might mean; he was beyond the age where morning erections were a daily inconvenience, so the timing seemed grossly unfair. Just a physiological aberration, most likely; the change of surroundings, an overly-tired brain, or just the effect of his body's unusual circadian rhythms.

It wasn't as though he'd never spent a night in the same bed as someone else – he and John had been thrown together on several occasions, including the godforsaken stag do. Certainly had no problem keeping things in check then.

He'd even shared a bed with Molly – although at the time they were having a standoff over rights to her bed, and she wasn't exactly well-disposed towards him. And back then, he hadn't been so aware of some of her…qualities. The gentle curves, the soft skin, the smiling eyes, the laugh that increasingly made him want to do everything within his power to make her happy. In short, the things that these days seemed to want to make his subconscious snuggle Molly Hooper.

Sherlock turned slightly on the bed, glanced down at himself - nope, there was no hiding that.

 _Go away!_

As Molly stirred slightly, he suddenly experienced a flash of terror, wondering whether he had in fact been addressing his crotch out loud.

She stilled again, so…apparently not.

He sighed, screwing up his eyes before opening them again. Watching Molly while she slept probably wasn't going to help his current unfortunate predicament, but seeing her at peace like this brought such a warmth to his chest that it made him wonder whether it was possible he could be wrong - that perhaps this scene, this situation was…right.

 _Sentiment_.

His judgement was being clouded by sentiment – and probably by what was currently going on 'south of the border', too (which was nothing but base physiology).

But whatever the reasons, Molly could not wake up and find him there.

Sherlock raised himself off the bed and into a standing position almost in one movement, thus minimising the impact made on the mattress. He silently retrieved his shoes from beside the coffee table (when did he take _them_ off?) and scooped up his jacket, straightening his shirt as he moved with stealth towards the front door. It was going to work - he was going to leave undetected, and get back to unravelling the truth behind his moderately interesting gangland hit.

Then he made the mistake of looking back at Molly - and suddenly his triumphantly stealthy departure now seemed somehow dishonest, shameful.

At that moment, his phone buzzed a text alert from Lestrade. Sherlock scrolled through the message and then flicked to the dial pad.

Oh well - at the very least, a conversation with Gavin was guaranteed to eliminate any residual problems in the trouser area.

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 _ **Apologies if Sherlock's 'morning glory' problem descended into a slightly silly farce by the end! :-D**_


	4. Chapter 4

He thought he'd got away with it, but then came the erotic dreams. Persistent. Relentless.

It didn't seem to matter whether he'd seen Molly the same day or not, or if he had, what the circumstances were – she could have been eating crisps in the morgue, or telling him about having to administer worming tablets to Toby, his body was apparently quite undiscerning when it came to stimuli. He felt like a bloody fifteen-year-old boy.

This should have made things awkward when he and Molly next shared a bed – but the context firmly put pay to that.

Mary was dead, his nose was fractured from a beating meted out to him by John, he'd narrowly escaped the machinations of a celebrity serial killer, and he was coming down again. The withdrawal was bad this time, and Sherlock wondered whether it was because he was getting old – hard drugs, he thought wryly to himself, were perhaps a younger man's game.

Molly was on the babysitting rota, and when she came over for the first time, Sherlock was shamefully aware that he might have been a bit 'handsy' with her in the ambulance. He tried not to think about it too much – and Molly seemed to have accepted a general apology for his conduct during that investigation, so he opted not to make specific reference to his wandering hands.

Molly had started out that night on the sofa, but suddenly she was on the bed with him, and Sherlock realised the noise that he could hear was coming from him – a growling, keening, guttural noise that barely sounded human. Sweat was pouring off him, his heart thundering in his chest, and he was tearing at his skin in a desperate attempt to rid himself of the coke-bugs. Molly acted quickly, knew exactly what needed to be done. She grabbed him by the wrists and held on with an incredible force, and although he couldn't register all of the words, she could hear her voice soothing him, saying his name, telling him she was there.

They stayed like that until the burning itch subsided enough for him to regain control, and for his pulse to begin to slow. Without thinking, Sherlock reached out and gathered Molly into his arms and, after a moment, he felt her own arms creep around his back. His heart continued to thud against her, as he breathed in the reassuring, calming scent of her skin, her clothes. There was a new sound now – gasping, gulping sobs, and they, too, were his. Molly shifted on the bed, moving up onto her knees so that she could hold him more closely; Sherlock felt the fingers of one of her hands wind through his hair, and her lips press tight against his temple. In return, he tightened his grip around Molly's waist, holding on like she was the only safe port in a storm. Hot, tears ran in rivulets down his face, mingling with the rank, salty sweat from his fever.

He was disgusting, helpless, weak.

But when they separated, the look on Molly's face didn't tell that story. She kissed his forehead, gently wiped away a tear with the pad of her thumb.

"I'll be right back," she murmured, looking into his eyes to reassure before slipping off the bed and leaving the room briefly. Sherlock could have sworn he heard the word 'sweetheart' at the end of that utterance, but he was hardly in a position to query her on it.

When Molly returned, she was carrying a flannel and a bowl of cool water. She set it down on the bedside table, and offered Sherlock her arms to help him to stand. He allowed her to help him strip down to his boxers and then manouevred him to the chair; he closed his eyes while Molly applied the cold flannel to his face, his neck, his chest. He was a mess and the worst thing about it was that he wasn't even her mess to clean up.

"Will you take something?" she asked a few minutes later, when she'd fetched him a glass of water.

He shook his head after taking a gulp. He hated the anti-emetics, which usually only made him feel even more vile. And the only kind of painkillers he was allowed to have were tantamount to trying to cool the ocean with an ice cube. Anyway, the hard way was no less than he deserved.

"Spare sheets?" she asked, and he pointed her in the direction of the linen closet.

He sat in the chair, still in his underwear, head thumping, while Molly stripped the bed of the sweat-sodden sheets and replaced them with fresh ones. Strangely, it was only then that it registered with Sherlock that Molly was dressed only in a singlet and pyjama shorts, and he forced himself to avert his gaze. She certainly didn't deserve to be leered at by a junkie.

Molly held back the sheets for him, a gesture that made him feel like a child, and Sherlock vowed to himself that he wouldn't allow this dynamic to be a permanent state between them. He didn't want her taking care of him – he wanted them to take care of each other. But in that moment, he couldn't have been more grateful, more indebted.

"I'll be next door," Molly whispered. "But call me if you need anything. Anything."

His voice was hoarse when he replied.

"I need you."

Her hand reached across the covers and found his.

"I'm here."

"I want," he began, licking his cracked lips. "I would like…to hold you…Would you let me do that? I, I think it might help."

He watched her reaction, could see her thought processes. She was wary – that was understandable. Sherlock knew he was in no position to be asking for anything, but he hoped that with this gesture, he could give _her_ something, too. Convey some of the things he couldn't express in words.

Molly gave a quick nod. Sherlock shifted his aching body along in the bed and waited for her to get in beside him before lying down, positioning himself. He expected to spoon himself around her, but instead she turned to face him, tentatively reaching her arms up and looping them around his neck. This action – and the reassurance in her gaze – encouraged him closer, and his hand naturally found a resting place at her waist. It was almost as though they were dancing. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the drugs in his system, but every point where his body touched hers felt as though it was aflame. The coke-bugs didn't stand a chance.

And when he allowed his eyes to land on her face, he saw – with some surprise – that there was shyness there. Molly was, after all, he realised, almost completely flush with his bare chest, and she was in little more than underwear herself. Sherlock wished more than anything that this - the single most intimate thing that had ever happened to him – wasn't happening in these circumstances. Although at least the drugs meant that he was unlikely to have any embarrassing physical reactions to their cuddling.

This should have felt like too much, too claustrophobic. When Janine had been sharing his bed, she would paw him and cling to him and try everything she could to wring certain reactions from his body. He had started to run out of excuses for sleeping on the sofa, and at the very least he would ease himself away from Janine as soon as she fell asleep.

But this… this was _wanted_. It was comfort and closeness and trust, and all of the other things that had previously seemed either pointless or terrifying. Right now, he was broken – horribly broken – but perhaps if he allowed Molly to take control of the pieces, she could help him to build something better than the original.

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He slept better than he should have done, and when Sherlock woke up the next day, Molly was already dressed and bringing him a cup of tea, which he forced down out of politeness and gratitude. He could hear the washing machine turning over in the background. Molly waited while he showered, helped him into fresh pyjamas and then offered to help him shave, insisting that it would make him feel more human. _You make me more human_ , he almost said before catching himself.

His immediate response to the offer was to refuse – it was too much – but then she'd pointed out that his hands were still shaking, and that gave him the justification they both needed.

He sat on the edge of the bath next to the sink, his jaw tilted upwards to allow her to work. She was in his space, standing between his parted knees. Watching Molly as she took his face in her hands, carefully moving the razor over the contours of his skin - the tip of her tongue poking out in concentration - now ranked as the second most intimate thing that had ever happened to him. It took all of his remaining strength to resist the urge to pull her into his lap.

It brought a white-hot spike to his guts to think that she must have done this before, for another man. And probably not for a man who was too helpless to do it himself, but for other reasons that he supposed existed between men and women.

"All done!" Molly announced with a smile, swiping a stray blob of shaving foam from his jaw and stepping back out of his personal space.

Yup, he thought. He was. Completely.


	5. Chapter 5

Although those initial, chronic withdrawal symptoms passed within a few days, Sherlock knew he wasn't out of the woods. His physical and mental energy started to return, but it made him restless and anxious, and he knew that idleness and solitude were the enemy at this crucial stage.

During that time, he and Molly walked around the streets of London for hours – he had to walk himself to the point of exhaustion to be sure he wasn't a danger to himself. Whenever she had taken the arm he offered, Sherlock had felt an overwhelming gratitude – and disbelief - that this kind, lovely woman wasn't ashamed to be seen with a dishevelled, slightly shaky drug addict. Not only was she not ashamed to be seen, but she seemed happy in his company. She made bad jokes, distracted him with stories from the morgue, bought chips and insisted they share them (even when – especially when – he claimed had no appetite) and generally acted as though there was nothing bizarre about them trudging the streets together at three in the morning.

By the time his birthday came around, the worst had passed, but he and Molly seemed to have started something that both of them were reluctant to finish. Every subsequent night she stayed over at Baker Street to keep watch over him, she slept in his bed with him. Since that first night, they had tended to stick their respective sides of the bed, which was probably for the best; just the thought now of Molly pulled flush against him, her hands on his body, was enough to send him into buffering mode - or worse.

Lying awake on more than one occasion, Molly curled up under the duvet, breathing softly beside him, he thought about John's words on his birthday – his assumptions about The Woman, and what was missing from Sherlock's life. John had no idea what was or wasn't missing from his life; as always, he saw what he wanted to see.

That said, _he_ didn't exactly know what he had either.

The night after their trip to the cake place with John and Rosie was due to be the last – both John and Molly felt that he would be alright on his own from that point, and it was hard to argue with two doctors (even if one of them hadn't seen a live patient in nearly fifteen years). On the one hand, Sherlock was anxious to redress the balance in his relationship with Molly, for them to regain that sense of equality again, but with it would go any excuse for physical closeness.

Or so he assumed.

Over the next week or so, it showed no sign of letting up. Circumstances meant that he didn't see Molly for work purposes, but their shared godparenting duties put them in each other's paths with increasing regularity. Spending time with Rosie was good for the soul, and Sherlock felt a sense of peace and lightness settle into his life. Although he was careful not to do it too often when John was around, he found himself drawing Molly into playing, teasing conversation.

 _It's called flirting, you tit_ , he heard Mind Palace John tell him. _You used to do it all the time when you wanted something._

He couldn't deny it, and he was ashamed of it, but the two things seemed worlds apart. Before his 'death' and exile, before he and Molly even really had a friendship, flirtation – or a facsimile of it – was a tool for getting from point A to point B: I want lab access, therefore I compliment your hair. But now his only motivation was provoking a smile, prolonging their time together, making himself a desirable companion.

Sherlock found that flirting was particularly easy to do with a baby around as a distraction and a prop – and going by Molly's reactions, Sherlock was left in no doubt that it was welcomed, and was almost certain that she was flirting back.

In the end, he only had to wait a few days before he was back in bed with Molly. She had agreed to babysit Rosie on her day off, and he had gone around to her house to get a second opinion on some lab results, which had showed up sky-high levels of serotonin in his current murder victim. Molly had answered his question in less than two minutes, but it seemed rude to leave immediately ( _since when did that bother you?_ queried Mind Palace John). Somehow, he ended up staying there for several hours. Sherlock had long since accepted that seeing Molly Hooper with a baby did peculiar, unsettling things to him, but it was easy to explain those things away with basic evolutionary biological theory. Or should have been.

When John collected Rosie after work, Molly had offered them all dinner, and Sherlock was slightly ashamed at how glad he was when John declined. Instead, it was dinner for two, eaten side-by-side on their laps in front of some crap telly. At one point, Toby leapt up onto the sofa, batting Sherlock in the face with his tail as he clambered over him in search of Molly's lap.

Eventually, Molly swung her legs down from the sofa and stretched them in front of her.

"Mmm, I'm going to bed," she said. "'Night, Sherlock."

She leant over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before standing up and heading for the living room door. Sherlock sat there from a moment, mildly stunned – were cheek kisses a thing they did now? Did she expect one back from him?

Before he'd really thought about it, he took off after her. She was halfway up the stairs, but turned at the sound of his approach.

"Molly…I…er…"

"Do you want to stay?"

She said it so matter-of-factly, and he didn't expect it, but it gave him the confidence to be direct in return.

"Yes," he replied.

Molly smiled.

"Okay. I think I've still got a pair of your pyjamas here – you know, from a couple of years back," she said.

So she hadn't thrown everything out as he'd directed.

"I'll, um, I'll just go and get ready, and I'll see you in the bedroom," she added.

Sherlock nodded dumbly, allowing a few seconds to pass before he followed her up the stairs. There had apparently been no question that he would be sleeping in her bed, and not in the spare room. By the time he got there, Molly had disappeared into the en suite and a pair of striped pyjama trousers and a t-shirt lay folded on the bed, along with a toothbrush still in its packet.

As Sherlock changed out of his suit, Toby meandered into the bedroom and wound around his feet. He scooped up the cat with a half-sincere apology and deposited him in the hallway, closing the door behind him. He had no idea what his hopes and expectations were of the next few hours, but he was fairly certain they didn't include a cat trying to sleep on his head. He also wouldn't put it past Toby to try to suffocate him in his sleep.

When Molly emerged from the bathroom, she was wearing a loose t-shirt and the same pyjama shorts she'd worn at Baker Street that first night. He wondered whether she'd considered the vest top too much. Given the speed at which his heart was currently operating, she was probably right.

In the privacy of the en suite, Sherlock brushed his teeth, pausing afterwards to stare at himself in the mirror. _It's only Molly_ ; _you've done this before_. But…not really, not like this. He was no longer in the aftermath of a relapse – he was fit and well, and he'd practically invited himself into her bed.

She was reading when he came back into the bedroom, but almost immediately put down her book. The corner of the duvet on the other side was turned down – a clear invitation - and Sherlock climbed in beside her, only letting out a breath once he was lying on his back. He realised that he couldn't remember the last time he hadn't brought his phone to bed, intent on checking through emails and the blog one last time. At that moment, he couldn't even pinpoint exactly where he'd left it.

"G'night, Sherlock," Molly said, her voice breathier than normal.

"Mm, goodnight, Molly," he replied, as she turned off the lamp.

But it wasn't good enough – not nearly. And Molly clearly felt the same way, because as Sherlock tentatively shifted his body across the mattress, he realised that she was moving towards him, too. Her back met his chest, and it felt as though a rocket had been let off. He felt Molly settle into him, wriggling slightly to get comfortable – and God, that wriggling was dangerous. He could already feel himself growing hard. What would she think of that? Sherlock ached to touch her, but he didn't trust himself, didn't even know where to begin.

Licking his dry lips first, he dipped his head to press his lips to Molly's shoulder where the wide neck of her t-shirt exposed bare skin. Slowly, she reached her arm up behind her, cradling the back of his head and threading her fingers through his hair, keeping him close. Her quick, soft sigh was the most sensual sound Sherlock had ever heard, and as she arched her back against him, he knew that she couldn't fail to notice the physical effect she was having on him.

But he wanted too much and too quickly, and although his body was urging him forward, fear and panic started to flash across his brain. She felt so perfect, and Molly was making clear that his touch was wanted, welcomed – but it was him, he was defective somehow.

And if he gave in to this, he was crossing a line that couldn't be redrawn, both with Molly and with himself. He couldn't make the promises that Molly deserved, and he couldn't be effective in the one thing he was good at if emotions were able to cloud his judgement.

But just as he was hurriedly trying to compose some sort of apology in his head, Molly withdrew her hand from his hair and instead brought it down to find his. She brought his hand to her lips for a quick kiss, before lacing their fingers together and pulling his arm around her middle. Sherlock immediately felt his pulse rate start to drop as he relaxed into the embrace; Molly had sensed his fear, his unreadiness, and she was making it right for him. _This_ , he could manage. It was warmth and comfort and closeness, and it didn't frighten him, even though he knew that friends didn't hold each other this way.

Still musing on the nature and scope of friendship, and still cataloguing the wonderful sensations borne of having Molly Hooper in his arms, Sherlock slowly, gradually surrendered to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock was woken by Molly shifting in his arms, trying to extricate herself from the tangle of limbs they had apparently become in the night. She was trying to do it gently, without waking him, and as he realised what was going on, he relaxed his hold on her. The feeling of loss was immediate.

"Sorry," she whispered, so close to him that her breath tickled his cheek. "Early shift. I have to get ready."

He wasn't expecting the wave of relief that washed over him when he realised she wasn't going willingly. Nor was he expecting what came next.

Molly turned so that she was facing him, hitching herself onto her elbows in readiness for getting out of bed. Sherlock watched her eyes – warm, beautiful eyes - search his face before she dipped down to quickly kiss his cheek. The next few seconds were lost to history, and he had no real idea who initiated it, but suddenly he was kissing Molly Hooper.

Really kissing her.

Soft, slow, tender kisses, but not chaste – definitely not chaste. Open-mouthed, exploratory and _wanting_. Her fingers curling gently in the fabric of his t-shirt, keeping him grounded even while his core temperature soared.

It was probably all over in a few seconds, but felt like much longer, as a running commentary of competing voices played in Sherlock's head – he ordered them all to shut up, because who bloody asked their opinion anyway?

He felt Molly sigh softly into his mouth, and the sound shot a straight course to his groin; he deepened the kiss, little idea of what he was doing, but desperate to provoke the sound again.

But then she broke away – just a few inches. Blinked at him a little shyly, pressed her lips together as though biting back a smile.

"I, um…I _really_ have to get to work," she whispered, and Sherlock saw his own frustration mirrored in her slight frown. "I'm sorry."

Sherlock then realised that his hand was tangled in her hair, had somehow made its way there as they kissed.

"Molly…"

His voice came out as a rasp, his throat thick.

"I know," she nodded quickly, bringing her hand up to cover his.

His heart was pounding out of his chest, and Sherlock shifted closer, his body apparently intent on persuading Molly to change her mind. A flicker of a smile crossed her face, and as Sherlock angled up towards her hopefully, she rewarded him with another kiss; deep and warm, and also slightly playful, nipping at his bottom lip. He closed his eyes and felt her fingers dance lightly across his jaw, a quiet moan escaping her lips.

"I have to…okay, I really have to go," she said, pulling away more decisively, but with a tell-tale blush that made Sherlock's chest swell with pride (which was now at least in keeping with other parts of his body).

"Okay," he echoed.

As a response it seemed completely inadequate, but he was all too aware of some of the shit that came out of his mouth when he was high, and this current feeling was not far off. Now was not the time to spout the first thing that came into his head, particularly as the blood from his brain was currently being re-routed elsewhere.

He worried that even if he had an hour to compose something more eloquent, he still wouldn't come up with the right words to articulate how he was feeling – what he wanted, needed, feared. What Molly was doing to him, what he was doing to himself.

"Um, stay here as long as you like," Molly told him, collecting up a pile of her clothes. "And help yourself to anything you fancy."

He saw the blush deepen.

"Anything to eat, I mean," she clarified. "From the fridge. Or cupboards."

He lay there for the next fifteen minutes, listening to the sounds of Molly getting ready; the last time he had done something like this, he was feigning sleep and silently praying for Janine to hurry up and go to work. Sherlock half-wondered whether Molly would come back before she left, but then goodbye kisses could be dangerous – they suggested habit, expectations, ritual.

And goodbye kisses would certainly do nothing to alleviate his current 'excited' state. Sherlock slid a hand under the duvet and re-adjusted himself, trying – and failing - to make his pants somehow feel less constrictive. Fuck. Apparently, a night in the deserts outside Karachi was nothing compared to a good morning kiss in Molly Hooper's bed.

And, Christ - that had really just happened.

And it had been everything he had longed for as well as everything he'd feared. Sherlock had kissed and been kissed before, but only ever as a means to an end – he had vaguely understood how this might be pleasurable, but it had basically left him unmoved, scornful that his fellow human beings would put so much stock in it.

But this was the first time the physical act had been wired up to something deeper, the first time he hadn't wanted to maintain a detachment. From the moment he felt Molly's lips move against his in response, he understood just how powerful it was as a means of communication, of connecting – and he wanted to give himself to it completely.

And there lay the danger.

Dispassion, control, was key. He relied on it entirely; it was the thing that kept him safe – alive, even – giving him the competitive edge against everyone he went up against. He had accepted the value of _friendship_ , yes, but he'd seen what vulnerability, indulgence of deeper emotions, had done to John. He couldn't allow it – the duality of a life like that would tear him apart, render him useless in his work on top of being inadequate as a romantic prospect.

But then being kissed by Molly made him feel like a bloody king, made him feel as though he _must_ be worthy of more.

He didn't doubt that she had to get to work, but he wondered whether Molly was allowing him a cooling-off period, too. Something about that only made him want it more.

Once he'd heard the door close, Sherlock swung his legs onto the floor and sat for a moment. He stared down for a few seconds at the frankly ridiculous bulge in his pyjamas.

 _Your opinion is hardly an unbiased one_ , he scowled. _Anyway, you can stand down now._

He showered, dressed and waited for the party in his pants to calm down ('taking care' of that in Molly's home was out of the question – he accepted that he and his erection were just going to have to have a standoff until one of them capitulated). There were leftovers in the fridge at Baker Street that made for a semi-acceptable breakfast, but he ended up scraping most of it into the bin. He felt too wired to eat. He found, too, that he didn't want to linger in his flat; didn't want to be available to clients, and felt too unsettled to go through files, emails and lab reports.

He set out on foot with no destination in mind, and around 11am he received a text from Molly.

 **This morning was lovely. Thank you - Mx**

Sherlock couldn't help the smile that came to him, although he had the strange urge to suppress it, should anyone around him guess.

A couple of minutes later, there was a follow-up.

 **Home by about 5 tonight – Mx**

He felt a sharp, warm jolt through his body. There was a clear message behind those few simple words; she would be at home, and this was an invitation. It seemed possible that Molly was as preoccupied by thoughts of him as he was of her, and just the idea of it turned him on to an uncomfortable degree.

He had no doubt that his conduct that morning had been foolish; a storm was coming, and he knew it, and _still_ he had decided to indulge the growing chemical defect in his system. The problem was, it was becoming unclear in his mind whether Molly Hooper was a distraction from The Work, or whether The Work was a distraction from Molly Hooper.

His fingers itching, he bought a packet of cigarettes from a newspaper stall near Hampstead Heath, and five minutes later ended up giving them to a member of his homeless network, who he spotted near Parliament Hill. Cigarettes killed smell and taste receptors, and all Sherlock could think about was how Molly's lips had tasted, the heady scent of her warm skin.

He ignored a text from Mycroft. Two from John.

 _She knows you_ , said a voice in his head. _She doesn't want anything from you._

But no, that wasn't accurate. Yes, Molly wouldn't want flowers, date nights or grand romantic gestures, but the things she would want – would need, _deserve_ – couldn't be bought or faked. And they were the very things at which he was particularly bad: constancy, consistency, emotional honesty. He would fail spectacularly, and he would break Molly in the process.

 _She won't let you fail_ , the voice spoke again. _She'll be your strength._

But she shouldn't have to be his strength. All he seemed to do was take and take and take, and eventually she would be drained, spent, and resentful of him.

Five o'clock came and went, and Sherlock kept walking. Eventually, his feet took him back to Baker Street, and he collapsed, fully-dressed, on the sofa.

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 ** _Sorry, sorry, sorry - I know this is short!_**

 ** _Originally intended it as the first half of a chapter, but was worried that the chapter would end up being reams of pages long - and it seemed like a natural point to pause._**

 ** _If it's any consolation, the next chapter is well underway... ;-)_**


	7. Chapter 7

**_Sorry for the slight delay in posting this chapter - it turns out you can get performance anxiety just *writing* about first-time sex! :-D_**

 ** _I don't think this chapter changes the overall rating, but I guess it tips slightly towards an M (just a mild warning!)..._**

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The next day brought him no resolution. In the background, his brother sent cryptic, irritating messages, hinting enigmatically at something that was clearly supposed to interest him. His mother sent him a text asking about his 'health' (subtext: 'are you on drugs again?'), John sent another one asking if there were any interesting cases on the horizon. He didn't respond to any of them.

Shortly before ten pm, he was outside Molly's front door. He hadn't rung the bell, and hesitated to use his key. She would hate him now, surely? He hadn't responded to _her_ texts either, and she hadn't tried to contact him again.

He fumbled with his phone, his heart-rate building apace.

 **Can I come in? – SH**

He quickly typed again.

 **Please.**

Within seconds, the front door was opened and Molly was standing there in the same t-shirt and shorts, bare feet, her long hair wound into a bun. His breath hitched; she looked incredibly beautiful.

And there was no hatred in her eyes, no anger or resentment. Uncertainty, maybe.

"Hi," she said, softly.

"Hi," he replied, fixing her gaze with his.

The latch clicked shut behind him and they stood for a long moment, each waiting for the other. Slowly, Molly raised up her hand and gently took hold of his wrist, drawing him further into the house.

His brain now flooding with adrenaline, he lunged at her - there was no other way of putting it. Even while he was doing it, he cursed his inelegance, his inexperience. These things were easy to carefully choreograph when they didn't really matter, but now he was at the mercy of a higher force.

He kissed her hungrily, greedily, the voices in his head rejoicing in the fact that Molly was reciprocating, that the shock of his clumsy advances hadn't been too much. His restless, searching hands found her waist and he pulled her closer, every new sensation, every neuron igniting in his brain making him want more. He tried to dismiss the panic that swirled in the back of his mind, that he couldn't do this, that he would hurt Molly, that he would disappoint her, that their friendship would never recover.

Then Sherlock felt Molly's hand come to rest flat against his chest, against his heart, and he stilled. He didn't dare open his eyes, but when he was compelled to, she was waiting for him. Waiting for him to calm down, to regain some semblance of composure.

 _Too fast_ , he acknowledged, _Let Molly take control_.

"Sherlock...?"

He immediately understood every question that her tone implied. He bent his head so that his forehead could rest against hers, her hand still framing his heart.

"Yes," he replied.

"Come on," she whispered, lacing her fingers through his.

And then they were in her bedroom again, the door closing them off from the rest of the world and immediately making him feel safer, not so hopelessly out of his depth.

They stood facing each other, and Sherlock watched Molly slowly move towards him, her eyes on his the whole time – he knew she was looking for warning signs of his discomfort, and wanted to make sure she found none. She stopped in front of him, arching up on her toes and reaching up both hands to loop them around his neck; she drew his lips down to hers and led him in a slow, tender kiss. This time, when his hands found her waist, he was gentler, softly caressing her hips with his thumbs. She felt so small under his hands, but size had no bearing on strength, he knew.

As they kissed, one of Molly's hands left his shoulders and disappeared between them, popping open the button of his suit jacket. The hand then immediately moved to join her other, using both to slide his jacket from his shoulders; Sherlock shrugged out of the it the rest of the way without breaking their kiss, blindly depositing it close to where he knew there was a chair.

Molly's hands gently slid up his chest, and his own returned to her waist, drawing her a little closer this time.

"I've always liked this shirt," Molly smiled up at him, whispering.

For some reason, those words made him think about the seven years that had brought them to this point, and he felt himself smile. He toed out of his shoes, and as he did so, he noticed Molly's feet. More specifically, her painted toenails.

"The same shade," he said observed, Molly's smile confirming it. "It suits you. Very much."

"Thank you," she whispered, wriggling her toes, clearly a little pleased with herself. He was fairly certain her toenails hadn't been unpainted two nights ago.

They came together again, mouths exploring, testing, taking their time. Sherlock felt Molly's fingers come to rest on the top button of his shirt, staying there until she understood from him that this was okay. Slowly, she released one button, then the next, progressing until there was bare skin from neck to navel. Never before had he been undressed by another person – it put too much power in the other person's hands - but he found the experience of being undressed by Molly Hooper both tenderly caring and unutterably erotic. He felt himself growing hard in response, and he tugged the shirt out of his trousers just as Molly's hands slid up his sides to his chest, fingers gently skittering over all of his scars. She knew them all already, had treated so many of them; he was safe in her hands. Being bare to Molly wasn't frightening in the least.

She took his hand and walked them to the bed, climbing onto it and kneeling, waiting for him to join her. Sherlock felt his confidence beginning to return, every look and gesture from Molly building him back up. He reached for her, taking her face in his hand and kissing her again, changing the angle so he could taste her more deeply.

She responded enthusiastically, her hands moving over his biceps, his forearms, his stomach. Now almost achingly hard, Sherlock was already anticipating how it would feel to have Molly's body beneath his.

Her hands moved to the hem of her t-shirt, and Sherlock stopped her, sought her gaze. She nodded, smiling, and he carefully moved his hands up her sides, fingers grazing her skin as he worked the t-shirt over her head.

He swallowed hard.

He knew that she wasn't wearing a bra, but knowledge was one thing, and the visual was something else entirely.

And she wasn't shy - he was so pleased she wasn't shy with him, particularly after the cruel, unthinking words that still haunted him several years on.

"Molly..." he began.

His pulse thudded so hard in his ears, he could barely hear his own voice.

She was already coming to him, and to his surprise, she wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug, her body flush with his. Sherlock was instantly reminded that before anything, they were friends.

"You are so beautiful," he whispered, nuzzling his nose into her ear.

He knew a lot of big words, but he hoped she understood that this simple one came straight from his heart.

Molly's hand moved to cradle the back of his head, her fingers sliding from the nape of his neck into his curls. She pressed a kiss to his jawline.

"I think you're pretty nice, too," she said, and he felt her smile against his cheek.

She released him only for the time it took to straddle his lap, settling her knees on either side of his, watching him the whole time. She rested her hands on his shoulders, and Sherlock gave in to instinct, grasping her thighs and pulling her into him. Molly raised her eyebrows, bit down on a smile – apparently, both of them were surprised by the very obvious evidence of his readiness. Sherlock heard himself chuckle, and Molly buried her face in the crook of his neck to suppress a giggle. During days and weeks of agonising about this, he hadn't once contemplated the fact that it might be fun – that Molly Hooper would still be the same person in the bedroom.

"That all, um, seems quite in order," she said, eyes darting down to his lap before fixing him with a serious look, completely betrayed by the grin that was barely under wraps.

"Glad to hear it," Sherlock replied, with a quirk of a smile.

She started to kiss him again then, one hand cradling his face while the other held steady on his shoulder. Each kiss seemed to have the uniqueness of a fingerprint. Sherlock's own hands travelled from Molly's hips, up her sides, and he felt her brief, sharp intake of breath as his thumbs started to caress the undersides of her breasts. She murmured into his mouth, a hum of approval – _she liked that; his touch was wanted_. Almost immediately, he felt Molly's tongue sweep along his lips, seeking permission, and once he gave it, he was gone. Tongues and lips and hands took over, and where once he thought it would be too much, Sherlock found her couldn't get enough of it – enough of Molly.

With a growl that he barely recognized as his own, he dragged her further into his lap, but the friction was too delicious and the result was almost a sensation overload: there was a very real risk that he might not be able to stay the course. He could hear how quickly Molly's breath was coming now, too, feel her heart pounding against his chest.

Her lips moved away from his. Sherlock closed his eyes as Molly placed smaller, more delicate kisses on the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his brow: she was slowing them down. She slid from his lap, moving her hands to her hair to remove the pins and elastic, and Sherlock could only watch dumbly as it fell around her shoulders. He had never seen her like this – it felt like a new level of privilege.

He used the opportunity to scramble off the bed – he didn't care much for dignity at this point – and rid himself of his trousers (immediate relief) and socks. Molly had wriggled out of her pyjama shorts, revealing bee-patterned cotton briefs that somehow seemed so in character. She was waiting for him, backing up along the bed, her smile encouraging him to follow.

Very soon, Sherlock was exactly where he wanted to be, his hips cradled between the softness of Molly's thighs, his lips hovering above hers. Her fingers skated along his sides, caressed his stomach, never breaking eye contact with him. She felt so incredibly good, the press of her warmth against his erection exquisite beyond words.

As she went to kiss him again, he paused.

"Molly," he said, swallowing. "I…it's been a long time since…and never…not like this."

She nodded, looping her arms up around his neck.

"What I'm-" he started again. "…if it isn't good-"

"It already is," she replied, her face breaking into a beautiful smile.

Sherlock licked his lips, nodded, met her smile with one of his own.

He felt Molly's hand travel down the length of his body and – smiling wickedly at him – she brought it to land on his arse, giving him a generous squeeze through his pants.

"Sorry," she said with a gleam. "Bucket list."

He tilted his head, raised an eyebrow.

"Is that the extent of your bucket list?"

Molly bit her lip, and Sherlock could see the dilation of his own pupils reflected in hers.

"Not even close," she replied, smiling.

He leaned in to kiss Molly's shoulder, her neck, bracing his arms on the mattress at either side of her. He was pretty sure that it was he who was responsible for the low groan when the weight of his body brought them together more completely; he started to rock gently against her, feeling Molly match his every move, gripping him more tightly with her thighs. This would need to happen soon, or it might not happen at all.

Luckily, Sherlock was not alone in this thinking.

He felt Molly slide a hand between their bodies, and for the first time he felt her touch him, cupping him gently. _Safe in her hands. All of you._

"Sorry it's a few weeks late," she whispered, smiling up at him. "You can cough if you like."

It took Sherlock a moment to make the connection – his brain definitely wasn't his most engaged organ at that moment – but then he snorted.

"I was in no fit state that day to make good on my overtures," he told her, genuinely surprised that he was able to get a coherent sentence out.

"Amazing the difference a few weeks can make," Molly smiled, caressing him.

It really, really was.

Sherlock brushed his nose against hers, marvelling at how every touch seemed to matter, seemed to bond them more closely.

"Sherlock…," Molly began, looking to catch his gaze. "Are…are you sure? Because if you're not, I-"

"Yes," he replied, keeping his eyes on hers. "Yes, Molly, I'm sure."

Bedroom etiquette really wasn't his area, but he needed to be certain beyond doubt.

"Are you?"

There was the briefest of pauses before Molly's face broke into a broad smile.

"'Course I'm bloody sure!" she said, moving both hands to frame his face.

Sherlock nodded, feeling his own smile break through the last residual atoms of anxiety. He dipped his head to place slow, reverential kisses on Molly's forehead, her cheek, her nose, before capturing her lips again.

Tonight, these four walls, and the beautiful, extraordinary woman there with him, were his world.

000000000000

There were so many things he shouldn't have done.

He shouldn't have let himself fall asleep in Molly Hooper's arms.

He shouldn't have accepted breakfast and eaten it in bed with her, both still in their underwear.

He shouldn't have initiated sex for the second time.

He shouldn't have let her kiss him when he left, or returned the kiss so fervently.

And those were just the headlines. Because, it turned out that he was exactly the reprehensible bastard that he thought he was.

The further he walked from Molly's flat, the more he was able to convince himself that it was the only thing to be done.

Because how could anything like this – anything that made him feel so good - possibly be sustainable? When he could barely navigate the peaks and pitfalls of friendship, how could he ever hope to give Molly enough, to _be_ enough? He hadn't felt that way the previous night - when he'd told her he was sure, it hadn't been a conscious lie – but now it felt like self-delusion. She had too much faith in him, and the pain he would feel at letting her down, at being the cause of her disappointment…Sherlock knew he couldn't take it.

What happened was now consigned to history in Molly's house, and what lay ahead outside of that was what mattered, what had always mattered. There had been no agreement, no contract signed, no explicit statement of intent.

She sent him a text later that day, and he tried not to think of her thumbs hovering over the keypad as she tried to decide what would be appropriate.

 **Interesting GSW today. Flintlock pistol. Come by and see if you like – Mx**

Molly was being cautious, trying to keep things casual.

He didn't reply.

Another one came through in the evening.

 **Home about 10. Too late for chips? - Mx**

Again, he didn't reply.

Sherlock thought about blocking her number – it would have been easier than to have to see her name appear on his screen – but he couldn't bring himself.

He couldn't go to bed that night, terrified of how bereft he might feel. Everything, every part of him ached for her so badly – and this was one withdrawal that he would have to go through on his own, cold-turkey and out of sight of everyone who knew him.

And it was the most trivial thing that nearly made him break: a small, yellow hairband by the bathroom sink, left there when Molly was taking care of him.

The spontaneity and force of his own tears took him by surprise and left him gasping, gulping for air. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes to try to stem the tide, but his whole body shook – he couldn't live with this grief. Could he go back? Would she take him?

But then, in the middle of all this, his phone rang – John calling him. Just the sound – the interference of something from outside of his brain – snapped him out of it. He didn't take the call, but instead started to clean himself up, swiping at his cheeks with the sleeves of his jacket like a small child, trying to steady his breathing.

When the phone rang again seconds later, he answered, and in a frantic tone, John recounted having been attacked by a woman who claimed to be his sister. If ever Sherlock needed a distraction, the most colossal of all distractions had just crashed headlong into his path.

The last time he heard from Molly was when he checked his phone in Mycroft's car, on the way to the south coast, Sherrinford only a couple of hours away. It was a voicemail. Molly never left him voicemail messages; she knew better.

 _"Sherlock, it's me. Look, I just heard about your flat and what happened, and I…"_

He heard her take a breath.

 _"God, Sherlock, I don't know what to say. I'm…I'm pleased, I'm so relieved you're alright...I've picked up Rosie from Mrs Hudson, because Mrs Hudson…she's pretty distraught; it's too much for her at the moment. Please…if John's with you, just…could you tell him so he doesn't worry? That's…that's all, really. Just…"_

He heard a pause in the message, was afraid of what he might hear next.

 _"…just…that. Goodbye, Sherlock."_

He wasn't sure why he didn't immediately delete the message; probably because Mycroft was eyeballing him from the seat opposite. But possibly because there was something in Molly's tone: resignation, acceptance – she was letting him go.

It should have been exactly what he wanted to hear, exactly the result he needed from this whole mess. And it should have spelt an end to everything.

But Eurus Holmes was just getting started.


	8. Chapter 8

**UPDATE ALERT!**  
 **I actually went back and made some revisions to the end of the previous chapter (chapter 7), because I was worried that I hadn't done justice to Sherlock's state of mind, and ended up making him into too much of a bastard! You might want to read before you move on to this one :-)**

 **And as for this one, I have never written and re-written part of a fic quite so many times - it completely drained me this week!**

 **Thanks so much to Seymourthedog for being my beta on this. Hope it has come out okay :-)**

 **00000**

He understood now why she didn't want to say the words, why she couldn't. It was the same reason he had found himself repeating them for the second time. Emotional context was everything. When the words were true, they had the power both to destroy and to redeem.

His sister knew. She knew that Molly wouldn't take that from him – too much had passed between them for her to just yield to it, to him. Genius though Eurus was, however, it wasn't her superior intellect or deductive powers that brought her to this understanding: she had the video evidence. Not from Molly's bedroom – thank God – but seeing and hearing their other interactions was clearly enough. She'd observed a deepening friendship, increased affection, a growing desire…and his betrayal.

Eurus Holmes, the child unable to express her yearning for love, had shown him how badly he had misunderstood – and feared - his own feelings, too.

It was after ten and he was standing outside Molly's house. No lights were on, and for a second he was terrified that she had gone away - just dropped everything and abandoned her life as it currently was. Or perhaps couldn't bear to be there once she knew there had been eyes on her (on them) for god-knows-how-long.

And she _would_ know now – it should have been Sherlock's explanation to give, but he knew he couldn't do it with any coherency, not when his mind and his heart were preoccupied by one thing only. Instead, Mycroft would have given her the headlines; the facts without the emotional context.

All evening - between briefing Lestrade, speaking to his parents, working out a course of action with Mycroft - Sherlock had tried to compose a text, to at least tell Molly…something. But each one felt like an insult to her, and made a coward out of him.

Molly Hooper held his heart – if he ever wanted to reunite it with the rest of his body, he would have to go to her.

She didn't reply when he knocked.

 **Molly, I'm outside. Will you see me? – SH**

Even in the middle of the night, she had been known to respond to his messages within seconds, but not tonight. He could easily believe that she was done with him this time, that he'd finally taken too much and she'd cut the tether that had always kept her near.

Looking through the letterbox, he saw Toby prowl through the hallway, the cat's head turning sharply at the sound and motion. If Toby was there, so was Molly.

Given that Molly's pet had yet to be trained to operate a five-lever mortice deadlock, Sherlock reached for his keys; he knew hers by touch alone. But just as he was going for the lock, the door opened.

For the very first time, he was standing before his friend in the knowledge that he loved her, and his whole body knew it; his heart raced, he had rocks in his stomach – and he felt like the lowest wretch of a human being.

She wore the same t-shirt, the same pyjama shorts. Hair still tied up as it had been when he'd made the phone call. Bare feet, but the nail polish was gone.

"Molly…" he began, feeling his breath hitch. He longed to hold her, for his body to feel the evidence that she really was okay, but her arms hugged her middle in a defensive posture.

"What do you want, Sherlock?" she asked, her voice weary but calm. At one point she had been crying, but not now. "If you've come to explain, there's really no need. I spoke to John, and I even had the honour of a phone-call from your brother, which I suppose was only polite, seeing as there were twenty of his people outside, waiting to turn my house upside down. I know what you've been through, and although I can barely understand, or, or believe it…I do understand that none of it was your idea, that you were only trying to protect me."

She took a breath.

"It feels like I should be grateful for that."

"Molly…"

He shook his head, tried to speak, but it turned out he had no response.

"You can't do this, Sherlock," she said, her voice quiet but measured. "I'm sorry about everything that's happened, about your friend, about all of those people - I'm so, so sorry and…and at some point maybe I'll be able to help you again, but you don't get to do this. Not tonight, not so soon."

Sherlock frowned, feeling himself start to panic.

"I…Molly, I don't want anything from you. I haven't come here-"

"Then why _did_ you come?" she asked, and this time he heard a crack in Molly's voice that made direct impact with his heart.

He looked at his feet because he was cowed by her gaze.

"You made me feel like an experiment, Sherlock," she said, swiping at her eye. "Not just today, but…everything, all of these weeks and months. It felt like you tried something, but the results somehow weren't what you hoped for, so you threw them away."

"After everything that happened," Molly continued, pinching her lips together as though to compose herself. "You know, the one thing that I held on to, the one thing that left me with a shred of dignity, Sherlock, was that I didn't say it to you that night. I wanted to, so much, and it was right _there_ , but I thought it might scare you and…and I needed some sort of…just _something_ to hold back for myself. But you have that now, Sherlock – you took the last piece of me, even if you didn't mean to. So, if you've come because you want something from me, I'm sorry, that's it, I've got nothing left to give."

Sherlock felt the first prick of tears in the corners of his eyes.

"Molly, I love you."

The words came tumbling out of his mouth before he was aware that his brain had even formed them. But his brain was apparently no longer in charge.

He saw Molly blink, take a sharp breath.

"I didn't know it then, but I know it now," he said, trying to hold her gaze. "I know it's no excuse, but I didn't understand what it was - or perhaps I understood, but couldn't fully acknowledge it, because it didn't fit with what I knew about myself. All of this time, Molly...I know now that I was falling in love with you - but at the time all I could think about was how afraid I was. Afraid of giving myself over to something that I couldn't control, but also something that I couldn't live up to, and that I could very conceivably lose. Molly...you make me want to give you everything, all that I am – but the more I allowed myself to give you, the more convinced I became that it could never be enough."

Molly sniffed, used her thumb to flick away a tear.

"I never wanted anything from you that you weren't willing or able to give, Sherlock," she said. "I just…I wanted _you_. _Because_ of who you are, not in spite of it. You don't love someone because you wish they were something else."

She blinked again, and Sherlock saw the tears starting to fall. At the same time, he felt something in his core pull him towards her – but he stopped himself. _You don't have the right._

"Love isn't easy, Sherlock," she said, smiling wryly through the tears. "Falling in love is wonderful but it's also bloody terrifying– especially when you first recognise it for what it is. Believe me, I should know."

She laughed, swiping at her cheek again.

"And…sometimes accepting love is even harder," she added, looking at him knowingly. "I just…I just wish it hadn't happened this way, that you could have told me…how you felt."

"I had all of the symptoms," Sherlock said. "But I couldn't come to the right diagnosis."

Molly laughed again, softly – and she smiled at him with a fondness that gave him hope.

"You should have seen a doctor about that," she said, biting the corner of her lip. "I happen to know one who knows you pretty well."

And with that, Molly did something unexpected. Taking a step forward, she reached up to cradle his cheek in her hand. Sherlock held his breath as she looked up at him; he hadn't fully realised that he was crying until her thumb caressed away a tear.

Stepping back from him for a moment, she gently pushed the front door closed.

"I think my neighbours have seen enough for one evening," she whispered, coming back to him.

"You…you don't want me to leave?" he asked, never for a second anticipating that there would be an alternative outcome.

He felt her fingers reach for his, taking his hand gently.

"I…I know I should probably be asking you for some space, some time to think this all through," she began. "And we can't fix this – anything of this – tonight. But somewhere in the middle of this shitty day, I think we might have confessed that we love each other…and that's not an end point, Sherlock, it's a beginning. I mean, if-if that's what you want."

Sherlock almost felt his knees go from under him – the trauma, the evisceration, the exhaustion, and now…this.

He closed his eyes and took the hand that held his, bringing Molly's knuckles to his lips before placing both of their hands against his heart.

"I hurt you, Molly," he murmured, feeling another tear escape. "You trusted me, you gave me everything, and I hurt you in the worst way imaginable. For that I am so very, very sorry. I can…I can never forgive myself."

She brought her free hand to his cheek again.

"Then that's where we'll start," she smiled. "Because you _have_ to forgive yourself. Not just for this, but for so many other things. That's what I want for you more than anything. And this is an easy one, Sherlock – because I forgive you…and all I want from you - if you really want to make it up to me - all I need from you is honesty. If you can give me that, then…then we'll be fine."

"I want to marry you."

He'd said it before he realised, but this was what it meant to be led by your heart.

Before he could bring himself to properly look at her, he took another breath and relinquished control to his heart again.

"I asked you if you wanted me to leave," he began. "But the truth is, Molly, I never want to leave. If you'll have me, if you'll take me and be patient with me, then I swear to you, Molly, I will never leave. I will try to be your strength as you've been mine, I will try to give you as much as you've given me, I will take care of your heart as you've taken care of mine, I will do all that I can to be the man you deserve. Did…I did I tell you that I want to marry you?"

This time, he heard Molly give a tearful laugh. The hand on his face moved lower, her thumb stroking his jaw.

"You did, yes," she smiled. "But, um, I think we should get through tonight first, don't you?"

Sherlock felt himself nod quickly, still shocked by the force of his own emotions. Molly was right, of course. _Too fast again._

But then he felt the hand he held at his chest squeeze his, and she peered up at him until he met her eyes.

"That, um, that isn't a 'no', by the way," she smiled, a little shyness in her voice. "I just…I just think we should give ourselves a break tonight. Let's…I don't think we should make any promises."

Again, Sherlock nodded – but he had, and they were promises he had every intention of keeping. Watching Molly's expression, gauging it, he bent his head to touch his forehead to hers - he was overwhelmed, humbled beyond words, by her capacity for forgiveness. Everything he thought he'd irrevocably lost – either through his own cowardice or through his sister's interventions - was still here. He felt Molly's arms reach up and her fingers weave through the curls at the back of his head, holding the two of them in place. He took her face in his hands.

"I love you."

It was a benediction, a vow, a statement of intent. He could now own the words and their power, and give them freely to the woman he loved.

He felt Molly's breath at the corner of his mouth, heard her inhale just as she had done during the phone-call.

"I love you."

She placed a soft, brief kiss to his chapped lips – it was gone too soon, but it was more than he could ever have hoped for when he arrived at her door. Even if that was all she would ever give him, he would hold it, keep it, remember it always.

She took hold of his hands, studying them, thumbs stroking across his knuckles.

"There was a coffin," he said, understanding her implicit question.

"I know," Molly replied, softly. "John told me. There's… there's still a lot to tell, but if it can wait until the morning…I really think we both need to sleep."

He showered, changed into pyjamas, sent texts to John and his mother, and sat on the edge of the bath while Molly knelt in front of him, applying antiseptic and steri-strips to his knuckles. Sherlock watched her expression, a mixture of concentration, compassion and – he couldn't ignore it – sadness: she hated that he'd hurt himself over her. Now that the shock and the adrenaline had worn off, his whole body ached with fatigue, and Molly practically had to walk him to the bed and help him into it.

When she got in beside him, Sherlock could sense that Molly was being cautious, and he couldn't help but think about how physical contact between them had become so easy and natural and right-feeling – and how he would do anything to get it back. But he understood her hesitancy, how being near him right now must go against all common sense and reason.

But in spite of all this, after a few moments had passed, he felt Molly moving towards him, stopping once they were a few inches apart, face to face. Slowly, she brought her hand up to lay it flat on his chest. Equally slowly, Sherlock brought his own hand up to cover hers. She was giving him his heart back – not because she no longer wanted it, but because she now trusted that he could take care of it himself, that he could follow its lead, and be good to it and share it with her like she needed. He hoped that in the days and weeks and months that followed, she would be able to trust him again with hers.


	9. Chapter 9

_**So this is the final chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who has stuck with it, and left either kudos or lovely comments (or both). Honestly, this was supposed to be a (long-ish) one-shot, but as with most things I write, it soon got out of hand!**_

 **0000000000**

It was in the days and weeks that followed that Sherlock started to understand what having Molly in his life, by his side, really meant. The circumstances for embarking on his first committed relationship were not ideal; part of him wanted to tell the outside world to go to hell and just sequester himself with Molly while he worked out how to be a passably good boyfriend, but the events of Sherrinford – and the subsequent fallout - weren't going to go away overnight. So instead, most of his time was divided between the practical and emotional needs of his sister and parents. It seemed that his visits were the only thing preventing Eurus from disappearing into herself completely, and when Sherlock wasn't visiting her, he was trying to mediate between Mycroft and their mother and father. Despite his mother's surprising view that he was the grownup of the family, Sherlock had rarely felt so ill-equipped to deal with something, or so under pressure not to screw it up.

And this was where Molly had continually amazed him. She encouraged him to talk to her, never acting as though it was an imposition and always instinctively understanding what he was struggling with. She talked things out with him and acted as a sounding-board, but she also gave him space without him needing to ask – or just brought a book into the room and sat with him, if he didn't need anything more than her presence. But she could also make him smile when the days were mounting up on him, and flat-out told him to stop when she could see - always before he could - that he was going to do damage to himself.

Sherlock couldn't help but feel like a burden in those first few days, constantly reminded that once again, he seemed to just be taking and taking. He was technically homeless, too, so was now a material burden as well as an emotional one. He'd offered to stay with John, but Molly suggested they take things one day at a time at her place, and see how they got on.

For the first couple of weeks, sleeping together had meant exactly that. Most days Sherlock was completely drained by the day's events, often arriving back at Molly's late at night and more or less collapsing beside her on the bed. He knew she was tired too, trying to get her head back into work, as well as looking after Rosie and helping him; she was even making lots of phone-calls for Mrs Hudson, helping her to organise the building works at 221B.

Sherlock was often gone by the time she woke up, catching early flights to Sherrinford, and hoping that his well-meant texts were enough to provide reassurance that Molly was in his thoughts. Because she was – constantly. But now at least those thoughts now carried hope, and the promise of a future that he was impatient to explore when circumstances finally allowed them to do it.

A few days after returning from Sherrinford, he bought an engagement ring. In all of the frenzied activity and with his frequent absences, he had started to panic that Molly would think that he wasn't genuine, that it had all been some kind of febrile reaction to the trauma. With all of the uncertainty and upheaval in his life at that moment, this was one thing where he wanted no room for doubt.

"I…I didn't want you to think that I didn't mean it," he'd said, fumbling through an explanation in her living room, velvet box in his outstretched palm. He had a momentary flash of panic when it occurred to him for the first time that Molly could equally have changed _her_ mind.

"I know you meant it, Sherlock," she had smiled softly in response. "That you mean it."

He'd watched nervously as she opened the box, her smile growing as she gently levered the ring from its plush cushioning. Hard not to think about his 'proposal' to Janine, how easy it had been to go through the motions. Again, emotional context was everything.

He'd cleared his throat, the short silence hard to take.

"But I, ah, I understand if you don't wish to wear it straight away, if you'd rather wait-"

"Of course I'm going to wear it!" Molly had replied, and she'd thrown her free arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a hug.

"I should probably upgrade my 'not a no' to something more definite, shouldn't I?" she'd smiled into his neck.

"I concede it might ease my anxiety a little, yes," he'd replied. "And I believe that a very wise person once said 'if you like it, you should put a ring on it', or something of that ilk."

Molly had snorted with laughter, her shoulders shaking as she leaned her forehead against his chest; Sherlock felt a swell of warmth in response – it was quite a thing to know that he could make Molly Hooper smile. And her smile was something he would never grow tired of trying to earn.

She'd held out her hand to allow him to do the honours, and then took his hand in hers.

"Um, I think a good snog is pretty long overdue," she grinned, arching onto her tiptoes.

Sherlock met her halfway, discovering exactly what people (idiotic people, he'd thought) meant when they talked about experiencing sparks of electricity. It was the first time they had kissed – properly kissed – since the morning he'd walked out on her. Since his return there had been quick, fond kisses in greeting or departure, but with this kiss it now felt as though perhaps they were moving forward once more – that Molly was allowing a little piece of her heart to be vulnerable again.

Neither of them had made any great declaration to friends and family. If Sherlock ever had the inclination to shout something from the rooftops, he knew it should be this, but it was all still so new, and he couldn't stand the idea of being observed like a lab animal while people waited for him to fail. Molly, he knew, could live without that scrutiny as well.

The person who eventually set the ball rolling was actually Rosie, whose sharp eyes and little fingers were drawn to the new sparkly thing on Molly's hand. John was halfway through telling Rosie to be careful with Aunty Molly's jewellery before he realised. It had been quite fun to watch the progression of his friend's expression from 'slack-jawed', through to 'confusion', 'incredulity' and, eventually, 'apparently-not-imagining-this'.

For the next couple of weeks, he and Molly were still finding their way together. Despite everything that had happened between them over the past weeks and months, Sherlock had never really given a lot of thought to actually _living_ with Molly. Living with John was relatively easy – buy milk, clean the toilet once in a while, and try not to piss each other off too much. But he was actually _living_ with Molly, even if it was only short-term. He would fret over whether he was in her way, or whether she would be upset with him if he went out without telling her where. But he never felt like an unwelcome presence, and when they were splitting cartons of takeaway in front of Friday night TV, bickering good-naturedly over the choice of viewing or the fact that she wouldn't use chopsticks, he would be reminded why it had always felt easy with Molly.

And as they started to figure out what a life together might look like, physical affection began to intensify again. Warm, languorous kisses in the morning before Molly left for work would turn into the kind of semi-naked wrestling sessions that would leave Sherlock breathless with anticipation for her return (and drinking his morning tea with an ice-pack in his lap, usually with Toby eyeing him in judgement). Evenings when he quite forgot whatever crap telly they were supposed to be watching, because suddenly Molly was more 'on' him than next to him, and mouths were exploring and hands starting to roam underneath clothing.

But despite the fact that the build-up was killing him, Sherlock was determined to cherish every incremental step, because this time he could truly lose himself in it, in Molly – it had been the one piece missing from their first night together. And with each day that passed, he knew that Molly's confidence in him was being restored, and that made it all the more sweet.

The deadlock was broken in a way that was somehow completely typical.

"So…" Molly had begun, breathless between kisses. "This…this is, um, lovely and everything, and I know that with all that's happened, slow is probably sensible - but I swear, Sherlock, if you don't take me to that bedroom right now so we can have sex, there's a real possibility that I might actually explode."

The next sound out of her mouth was a whoop of surprise, followed by a stream of giggles, as Sherlock's lightning-fast reactions took over, scooping Molly up from the sofa and slinging her over his shoulder. One thing he had learned in the preceding weeks and months was that Molly tended to know best – so who was he to question her over this one?

It was now almost exactly a year since the revelations with his sister, and while Sherlock hadn't expected life to let up, it had veered off in some unexpected directions. He was still waking up in Molly's bed most mornings, but these days they had company.

Their son had been conceived – most likely in that very bed – just a couple of months after the events at Sherrinford. It had been a decision taken together, and in Sherlock's mind, an easy one – he had wasted too much time already, and he didn't want them to miss out on this. He knew John thought they were rushing into it, but John was making the naïve assumption that this had all begun on the night of the phone call.

As Sherlock sat in bed, checking through his emails one more time, his thumbs took him back to the photo gallery on his phone. For years it had contained only the most interesting (and/or incriminating) photographs from cases, but fatherhood had – by his own admittance – turned him into a gigantic cliché. Even now, though, he only kept a select few photos on his phone, and one of them wasn't even of a person – it was a familiar white plastic stick, showing two pink lines, texted to him by Molly from her office at Bart's. He'd kept the texts too because, apparently, he was a romantic sap as well as a clichéd parent.

The first one – photo attached - had read:

 **Latest lab results for you. Thoughts? – Mxxx**

It was quickly followed up by a second image of five identical sticks lined up on her desk.

 **Hmmm. Probably not a false positive… – Mxxx**

He would never forget the moment she arrived at Baker Street later that afternoon, how it was clear that she could barely contain her happiness, no trace of doubt or worry in her expression.

Well, the pink lines were now a small human (also fairly pink – although puce was often more accurate), five weeks old and already prince of all he surveyed. At this moment, he was sleeping beside Molly at the far side of the bed, under a small blanket that used to belong to Rosie – co-sleeping had never been part of the plan, but Sherlock couldn't blame his son for rejecting his crib when the warmth and comfort of Molly Hooper was the alternative. After all, he'd been guilty of something similar himself for a long time now.

Everything was still fairly chaotic, and neither had still quite moved in with the other – although Sherlock had spent every night at Molly's house since their son's birth. There was a vague sort of plan to eventually all move in to Baker Street – and he'd have to start making it less vague now that the baby was more than just a concept – but Molly seemed happy enough to take things as they came, to enjoy their son as much as possible and deal with practicalities once they settled into yet another new routine. Sherlock didn't care particularly either – home was wherever Molly and their little boy was (and yes, his life was now just one, big, saccharine, greetings-card epithet).

At some point, a wedding would happen, too, something that had been temporarily derailed by the surprising swiftness of conception. It was all worth it, though, if only for the reaction Sherlock had been able to provoke in his parents, when, on a return journey from Sherrinford, they asked him where he was living.

"With Molly, of course," he had replied, before returning to his phone.

"Molly who?" his mother had asked, suspiciously.

"My fiancée," he told her, without looking up. "We're expecting."

There was a pause until his father leaned forward in the taxi.

"Sorry, expecting what?"

"Oh, for goodness sake, Timothy, the boy's talking about a baby!" his mother replied. "Or at least I hope he is - if it's one thing my sons have taught me, it's never to take anything at face value. Didn't you always say, darling, that Sherlock probably had a wife and three children hidden away from us somewhere?"

His father had given a short hum of laughter.

"Not quite, Mother," Sherlock had replied, pulling his face into an approximation of a smile. "Although the 'hidden away' part is sounding rather appealing. Can we pretend this conversation never happened?"

"NO!" his parents had replied in unison.

They got their way, of course. Even he couldn't deprive his parents of some measure of happiness after everything they'd been through.

He switched his phone to silent and slid down under the covers, shifting along the bed until he was able to wrap his arm around Molly, moving her hair aside so he could place a kiss on her jaw. He pushed himself up on his elbow so he could see his son, too, lying flat out on his back, his chest rapidly rising and falling in his sleep. With his chest flush with Molly's back, Sherlock could stretch out his hand and allow his fingers to ghost over the soft lines of their baby's tiny body – the whole world within his arms.

His mother's assessment was now accurate, at least – he _was_ the grownup, and it felt good, and there was no going back.

0000000000

 _ **I have to confess that Sherlock's quoting of Beyoncé was inspired by a fan video I caught on YouTube, with footage of Sherlock and Molly set to 'Single Ladies' – credit to the person who created that!**_

 _ **And in case it wasn't obvious, when Sherlock recalls Molly coming to see him after learning of her pregnancy, I was imagining the scene of Molly arriving at 221B in the end montage from TFP. Because, you know, wish-fulfilment.**_


End file.
